Macleod of Dare eBook

“Ay, just that. When he wass come back
from the boat, he will say to me, ’Hamish, it
is no more of me or my pipes they want at Dare, and
I am going away; and they can get some one else to
play the pipes.’ And I wass saying to him
then, ’Donald, do not be a foolish lad; and if
the English lady will not want the pibroch you made
for her, perhaps at another time she will want it.’
And now, Sir Keith, it is Maggie MacFarlane; she wass
coming up from Loch-na-Keal this afternoon, and who
was it she will meet but our Donald, and he wass saying
to her, ’It is to Tobermory now that I am going,
Maggie; and I will try to get a ship there; for it
is no more of me or my pipes they will want at Dare.’”

This was Hamish’s story; and the keen hawk-like
eye of him was fixed on the English lady’s face
all the time he spoke in his struggling and halting
fashion.

“Confound the young rascal!” Macleod said,
with his face grown red. “I suppose I shall
have to send a messenger to Tobermory and apologize
to him for interrupting him to-day.” And
then he turned to Miss White. “They are
like a set of children,” he said, “with
their pride and petulance.”

This is all that needs be said about the manner of
Miss White’s coming to Dare, besides these two
circumstances: First of all, whether it was that
Macleod was too flurried, and Janet too busy, and Lady
Macleod too indifferent to attend to such trifles,
the fact remains that no one, on Miss White’s
entering the house, had thought of presenting her with
a piece of white heather, which, as every one knows,
gives good health and good fortune and a long life
to your friend. Again, Hamish seemed to have
acquired a serious prejudice against her from the very
outset. That night, when Castle Dare was asleep,
and the old dame Christina and her husband were seated
by themselves in the servants’ room, and Hamish
was having his last pipe, and both were talking over
the great events of the day, Christina said, in her
native tongue,

“And what do you think now of the English lady,
Hamish?”

Hamish answered with an old and sinister saying:

“A fool would he be that would burn his harp
to warm her.”

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE GRAVE OF MACLEOD OF MACLEOD.

The monotonous sound of the waterfall, so far from
disturbing the new guest of Castle Dare, only soothed
her to rest; and after the various fatigues, if not
the emotions, of the day, she slept well. But
in the very midst of the night she was startled by
some loud commotion that seemed to prevail both within
and without the house; and when she was fully awakened
it appeared to her that the whole earth was being shaken
to pieces in the storm. The wind howled in the
chimneys; the rain dashed on the window-panes with
a rattle as of musketry; far below she could hear
the awful booming of the Atlantic breakers. The
gusts that drove against the high house seemed ready